How To Survive The Crazy Dutch Month of December
It’s been a busy few months but the end of the year is finally in sight. However, there is one month left to get through and it is the busiest one of them all. It contains the three biggest celebrations of the year; Pakjesavond, two days of Christmas and New Years Eve.
November might have had its moments with the sugar rush of Sint Maarten and the excitement of the Sinterklaas Intocht but now the real craziness begins. Dutch December has arrived!
The Confusing Cross Over – December 1st to December 5th
The confusion already starts during the first few days of December. The countdown to Christmas has officially begun, but Sinterklaas is still in the country. This creates a huge dilemma. Should the Christmas decorations be put up now or after pakjesavond? Is it wrong to start opening doors on the Christmas calendar while also putting your shoe out for Sinterklaas? Is it even safe to wear a Christmas sweater?
To make matters worse, what if you do already start preparing for Christmas and Sinterklaas finds out? Will he be angry? Will you get less gifts on Pakjesavond? It’s simple not worth the risk. Wait until after Pakjesavond to even think about Christmas.
Of course, this is not made easy by the fact that the radio has been playing Christmas songs since November and shops have been selling festive decorations since August.
Luckily there are vasts amounts of chocolate. A day or two before Pakjesavond all the chocolate letters that have not been sold yet go on discount. At this point it’s mostly the less used letters of the alphabet that are leftover. However, it does not really matter if they don’t have your letter. Your name isn’t Peter, Jan, Sarah or Xena? Who cares! It’s discounted chocolate and it’s not as if they are asking for ID. Buy yourself as much as you can.
Pakjesavond – December 5th
The first of the three big days arrive. Sinterklaas and his Pieten deliver gifts to every well-behaved girl and boy living in the Netherlands. If you’ve been good all year round you will probably be safe too. The good news is that if you are on Sinterklaas’ good list you are probably on Santa’s too… probably. Just don’t get the two of them mixed up.
The Middle Bit – December 6th to December 24th:
The day after Pakjesavond everyone wakes up to the cold realization that kruidnoten are no longer available. As soon as Sinterklaas starts his return trip to Spain the supply chain is suddenly cut off. Kruidnoten might have been on sale in every supermarket in the land since August but now not a single one can be found. Start stockpiling kruidnoten in early November to avoid a mid-December withdrawal.
On the bright side, it is now safe to put up Christmas decorations.
Christmas – December 25th and December 26th:
The second of the big celebrations arrive. More gifts are opened and at some point, there will be a gourmet (it’s just a question of if it will be on the first or second Christmas day).
Fireworks and Oliebollen – December 27th to December 30th:
With Christmas out of the way the stockpiling of fireworks for New Year’s Eve begins. Within just a few days the average Dutch household will contain enough explosives to supply a small army.
Proper fire safety is very important during this time. One wrongly discarded lit match could start a chain reaction that would destroy the whole of the Netherlands in a sparkly armageddon. Luckily this has not happened yet.
The days leading up to New Year’s Eve are not detonation free however. Some people simply can’t wait for the celebrations to begin and start lighting fireworks early. In fact, some of them are so eager that they can’t even wait for nightfall and let fireworks off during daylight hours… when fireworks are famously difficult to see.
New Year’s Eve – December 31st
Finally, the last big celebration of the year arrives. It’s just in time too. The craziness of the last thirty-one days (and of the entire year) has reached a tipping point. People have started to go slightly mad from a full month of festive cheer. There is an explosion (quite literally) as the pressure is released. Everyone says goodbye to the year with a cacophony of alcohol, fireworks and oliebollen (until at least 3am).
By the end of it all, you can’t help but wonder if it has really only been a month since the whole madness started. It just seems like so much to fit into one month. As fun as it was, Dutch December is luckily over and normal life can resume… For eleven months at least.
Check out some of my other posts to find out more about the Dutch Celebration of New Year’s Eve and read up on a Quick Guide to a Typical Year in the Netherlands.
In England we have Halloween which is really just one night and seems to be dying out. But we have Christmas which is a real shopping spree and shops and high streets put up decorations.(some are left up all year but only lite late in November.) and Father Christmas is every where ( Also elves have arrived from America and seem to be everywhere.) But the really big thing now seems to be Black Friday (and many other black days) and Cyber Monday ( and many other cyber days.) In fact it still seems to be going on. Oh and I for got our firework frenzy, Guy Fawkes November 5th. Nearly a month later we can still hear fireworks day or night. Maybe the English are as mad as the Dutch when it comes to celebrations.